When you create certain triggers in a Pipedream workflow, Pipedream has to poll the source API for new events on a schedule. The trigger runs in your account as a separate resource called an event source. Since the event source has to poll for new events, you’ll see some invocations charged to your account.
In other cases, Pipedream receives new events via webhooks, but needs to filter some of the HTTP requests out before triggering your workflow. For example, when you create a Google Drive event source that listens for new files in a specific folder, Google will send webhooks for all new files to the event source. Pipedream has to filter these within the event source, only emitting events for files within the specified folders. So you’ll see more invocations for the source than any linked workflows.
If you visit https://pipedream.com/settings/billing?invocationsByResource=1 , you can see your daily invocations broken out by resource (workflow and event source). This should show you the resources using quota in your account, with a link to the resource:
Click on the Configuration tab and find the timer configuration among the source properties (you may have to scroll down to find it). For example, the Timer controls the Twitter Search Mentions polling frequency:
The lower the frequency, the fewer invocations you’ll incur. So running a source once every 3 hours vs. every 1 min makes a huge difference in the total invocations count. But with lower frequency, you might not process events as quickly as you want. Balance your invocations with your tolerance for speed.
Have other question? Ask them in the comments below.
I get one invocation for each folder click when navigating in my Google Drive (without any file or folder change), or on each file open…
PS. There exists a bug in the Billing Invocations chart when switching between days:
Clicked first Mar 24th, then clicked Mar 23rd and then clicked again Mar 24th:
First off, welcome to the Pipedream community. Happy to have you!
Invocations are counted whenever a workflow runs or a source is triggered.
It sounds like the Google Drive source you have set up is incurring events. Sources can either be polling (set by a timer) or by webhooks coming from the 3rd party service.
It sounds like this source is triggered by webhooks, so it’s listening to events on your synced Google Drive account.
Which source type are you using? Happy to look up the internals and see how it’s being triggered.
No problem! @nenad-wnbbox thanks for the source name, that helps.
Unfortunately it looks like this source is triggered every single time a file changes, so those events will incur invocations even if it didn’t trigger your run.
I’m not sure what your process looks like, but perhaps making a dedicated Google Drive account that should only be triggered with criteria you need.
But unfortunately it’s not possible to sample or limit these webhooks for sources at this time.
Well, the thing is, I do not change anything in my Google Drive.
I just navigate folders - e.g. click on a folder to left-tree-menu to show the list of files.
Also, if I just open a file for viewing, e.g. PDF or a Video, it executes invocation.
The problem is it will burn down easily our innovations free-tier limit, thus we cannot finish up with the examination of your service.
I appreciate your fast response. Thank you for the addon.
We will inspect if there is an ability to spot some other Google Drive API for this purpose - so it gives us a bit more insight into the power of PipeDream functionality.
I have reported another awkward behavior in the Billing => Invocations report.
I did not manage to upload multiple images as a new user, but the flow of the bug goes like this:
I select one day, e.g. Mar 24th, with a total of 196 = 98+96+1+1
Then I select some previous day with similar data, e.g. Mar 23rd with a total of 704=276+199+194+20+5
Then I get back to the Mar 24th, which gives improper data where a total of 196 != 276+194+9+20
